Ghost Trackers (22 page)

It was clear to Trevor that his attempt to keep the peace between Amber and Drew had backfired. He wanted to say something to calm her down, but he feared that anything he might say would only make things worse. He gave Drew a plaintive look, hoping his buddy would employ his psychological training to pull himself out of the cavernous hole he’d dug for himself. But his gaze remained fixed on Amber, and he looked more thoughtful than worried. Trevor found out why a second later when he spoke.

“You said dreams.”

Amber looked startled at first, but she recovered. “No, I didn’t. I said dream. Just one.”

Trevor knew he should let it go, given how upset she had been a moment ago, but he couldn’t. It could be important, and given the seriousness of their situation, they couldn’t afford to ignore any bit of information, regardless of how insignificant it might seem at first.

“At the risk of making you even angrier, I have to agree with Drew. I heard you say dreams, plural.”

“Did you have another dream?” Drew asked. “Maybe when the three of us were in your room and you dozed off for a bit?”

Amber didn’t respond right away. Trevor had the sense that she wanted to deny it but that she also didn’t want to lie to them any further. Before she could answer, however, a fourth voice joined the conversation.

“Trouble in paradise?”

Greg stood behind Amber. Trevor hadn’t seen the man rise from the cool kids’ table and come sauntering over to theirs, and while he knew it was possible that he’d been so caught up in what the three of them had been talking about that he hadn’t noticed Greg’s approach, there was one thing wrong with that theory. Trevor had trained as a journalist, and his observational skills were a vital part of his professional tool kit. It wasn’t like him to miss important details, not to mention the fact that he’d been keeping a close eye on Greg from the moment he’d entered the banquet hall. It was as if he had been sitting at his table one instant and then magically appeared standing behind Amber the next.

Amber’s response to Greg’s arrival was dramatic. Her expression froze, and her body went rigid. She stared straight ahead, not turning to look over her shoulder at him. It wasn’t just that she was startled by his sudden appearance; she seemed afraid of him.

“We were just chatting,” Drew said. He glanced at Amber once more before turning to face Greg. “It’s a nice banquet. You and the rest of the alumni committee did a good job.”

Greg smiled. “It’s kind of you to say so, but the food’s barely passable, and that slide show is god-awful, isn’t it? Amateurish and maudlin. I had nothing to do with it. It was all Sherri’s doing.”

“I assume you mean Sherri Wackler,” Trevor said. He nodded toward the head table, where the woman in question still sat with the rest of the alumni committee. “Never thought I’d see you sitting next to a former head cheerleader. She’s as beautiful as she was back in high school.”

And it was true. Actually, he thought the added maturity granted by the last fifteen years made her even more beautiful. She was tall, with long blond hair, a model’s high cheekbones, a narrow waist, hips that flared out just enough, and a generous bustline.

“I suppose,” Greg allowed after a brief glance in her direction. “But beauty isn’t everything.”

“Maybe not,” Trevor said, “but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either.”

Greg gave him an appraising look, and he felt fixed in place, as if he were a lab specimen sandwiched between two glass slides being examined with microscopic scrutiny.

“You had a crush on her in high school,” Greg
said in a pleased tone of voice that reminded Trevor a little too much of a cat’s satisfied purr.

“I lusted after her, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Most of the guys in school did.”

“Not me,” Greg said. “She wasn’t my type.”

Trevor might have asked him what his type was, but from the way he looked at Amber, he already knew the answer to the question. For some reason, seeing Greg look at his friend like that filled him with a mix of revulsion and anger, and from the way Drew seemed to be struggling to maintain his composure, he figured he felt the same way.

Drew spoke then, an unaccustomed edge in his voice. “If you can spare a few minutes, why don’t you sit down and talk for a bit? We haven’t had a chance to catch up with you yet.”

Trevor saw the look of near panic in Amber’s eyes, and she gave her head an almost imperceptible shake, as if urging Drew to rescind his invitation. Greg gave no sign that he noticed her.

“I’d love to, but now that everyone’s almost finished with dessert, it’s time to move on to the formal portion of the banquet. The members of the alumni committee are going to give a few speeches. They’ll mention the passing of poor Sean and Jerry, of course, then pass out some gag awards to lighten the mood, that sort of thing. But the three of you are coming to the dance afterward, aren’t you? Once that gets going, it’ll pretty much run itself,
and I’ll be able to carve out some time to talk. We’ll catch up then, OK?”

He reached out and placed a hand on Amber’s bare shoulder. She shivered but didn’t turn to look at him.

“And maybe you’ll save a dance for an old friend?”

She didn’t answer, and he removed his hand, gave them a last smile, and turned to go. But he stopped and turned back around to face Trevor.

“I’ll put in a good word with Sherri for you. Who knows? Maybe the two of you can hook up later.”

With a last glance at Amber, followed by a smug grin that Trevor thought verged uncomfortably close to a leer, he turned and headed back to the alumni committee table.

When he was out of earshot, Trevor said, “That guy is even creepier than he was back in high school.”

In a small voice, Amber said, “You have no idea.”

Once the banquet
was over, Sherri watched the reunion attendees file out while the hotel staff went to work clearing away the tables and getting the hall ready for the dance. Most people headed to the bar to pass the time while the minimal decorations were hung and the DJ hauled in his equipment, although some returned to their rooms in order to change into clothes that were more comfortable
to dance in. Sherri wished she could do the latter. The little black dress she was wearing was stylish and made her look good—no, let’s be honest, it made her look hot as hell—but it wasn’t designed to be easy to move in. Too tight around the waist and hips and cut too low in front. If she wasn’t careful, her boobs would end up popping out when she danced, and wouldn’t
that
be the hit of the reunion? She could imagine the headline on the alumni committee’s Web site: “Former Head Cheerleader Busts Out on Dance Floor!” Even worse were her shoes. She’d only been wearing her high heels for a couple of hours, but her feet ached as if she’d been walking on them all day. The floor was carpeted, so she’d probably end up kicking the shoes off once the dance got under way, but what she wouldn’t give for a good pair of tennies with arch supports in them.

Sherri Wackler opting for comfort over fashion? What’s the world coming to?
She smiled to herself. She had a reputation to maintain or, more accurately, a role to play, and she might as well accept it. She was more than a person to her former classmates—she was a mythic figure, the Eternal Cheerleader, and they expected her to act the part. More than that, they
needed
her to do it. Just as they needed the other former big men and women on campus to fulfill their old roles, at least for one night. She felt like an aging pop musician who’d had a hit single years ago and was now expected
to sing her one song for her fans, over and over. She knew she shouldn’t complain. She’d chosen to serve on the alumni committee, after all, and in truth, it was fun to pretend that she was the teenager she used to be. She could endure the Heels of Torquemada for a few more hours. It was a small enough price to pay.

She distracted herself from her aching feet by supervising the placement of handcrafted signs, masterpieces of poster board, marker, and glitter, with such pithy slogans as “Class of 1995 Rox!” and “Dance Till You Drop!” She almost didn’t allow this last one to be taped up, considering that both Sean Houser and Jerry Cottrill had dropped dead this weekend. But she kept her mouth shut and pointed to the position on the wall where she wanted the hotel staff member who was assisting her to place the poster. The alumni committee had voted to go ahead with the festivities despite the deaths, and she figured that a few signs weren’t going to make people feel any better or worse than they already did. Besides, she didn’t believe in minimizing or avoiding unpleasantness. Death sucked, but it was a fact of life, and while she was well aware of the irony implicit in that statement, that didn’t make it any less true. And the sooner people started dealing with it, the faster they got over it, or at least as over it as they were ever going to get.

Sherri knew all about learning to deal with
death. During her freshman year in college, her Introduction to Biology class had been taught by a graduate student named Brad Taylor. He was smart, cute, and funny, and she’d had a serious crush on him. But she’d been a good girl and kept things professional between them until the class was over and her final grade submitted. The very next day, she showed up at Brad’s office and asked him out. He was ten years older than she was, but she’d always been attracted to older men. She knew she was pretty, so she wasn’t worried about being attractive to him on that score, but she feared he’d find her inexperienced, immature, and boring. But he was as attracted to her as she was to him, and he agreed to go out with her.

A year later, they got married. A year after that, while Brad was working on his doctoral dissertation, he found a small lump on the inside of his nose. He didn’t give it much thought, figured it was an ingrown hair or something. Sherri urged him to go to the doctor and get it checked, and he promised he would. She didn’t want to be a nag, so she didn’t keep on him about it. Besides, he was getting his doctorate in biology, for God’s sake. She figured he understood enough about basic health to take a lump seriously. But he was so wrapped up in his dissertation that he put it off. One month. Two. Before Sherri knew it, six months had passed, and she decided that regardless of whether she wanted to be a nag or not, she had to get Brad off
his ass and to a doctor. But by then, it was too late. The little lump turned out to be melanoma. Stage four, to be precise.

Six months later, despite surgery and chemotherapy, Brad was dead, and Sherri became a widow before her twenty-first birthday.

Losing him was hard in ways she couldn’t have imagined, and even with the support of family and friends, she struggled with depression for several years afterward. She’d been fine for the last five years or so, although she hadn’t remarried and dated only rarely. She had no trouble meeting guys—not the way she looked—but good guys, quality guys? That was another matter. Still, her life was OK these days, and when she thought about Brad, she focused on the good times, and the memories that came were always happy ones.

Nighttime was a different story.

When Sherri was six, her older sister had babysat her one evening while their parents went out.
Night of the Living Dead
was playing on a cable channel, and although she knew their parents wouldn’t approve of her showing Sherri a scary movie, especially one
that
scary, she had anyway. Sherri had been terrified but so compelled by the film that she’d watched all the way through, without once moving or making a sound. Her sister made Sherri promise not to tell their parents, and she agreed, but they found out anyway when later that night she woke screaming at three
A.M.
Her
parents rushed into her room, only to have their tearful daughter tell them that zombies were trying to break into the house.

Her sister, of course, was busted. But that began a lifetime of what Sherri thought of as her “zombie dreams.” She didn’t have them every night, maybe once every month or two, and they were, with slight variations, always the same. She would be trapped somewhere—in a house, in an alley, inside a department store—alone, with nowhere to run, and groups of shuffling, moaning, unblinking zombies were coming toward her, eager to sink their teeth and nails into her flesh. No matter how hard and fast she ran, the zombies always somehow caught her, and she’d wake screaming just as they were about to devour her.

As she got older, the dreams decreased in frequency and intensity, until she had one every six months, if that, and instead of waking up screaming, she’d sleep through them and remember them only vaguely in the morning. But then Brad died, and her zombie dreams roared back full force. Time, therapy, and antidepressants helped, and now she had the dreams only every couple of months, and while she still woke—covered in sweat, heart pounding, lungs heaving—rarely did she scream.

A therapist had told her the dreams were simple to interpret: the slow-moving but unstoppable zombies represented the inexorable approach of
death. Death had taken Brad from her, and one day, it would come to claim her as well. Easy-peasy, that will be a hundred dollars, please.

So, Sherri was no stranger to death. But even so, she still had trouble believing that any of her former classmates had died, let alone two in the same weekend
and
during the reunion to boot. What were the odds? She wasn’t a physician, but she’d been interested in anything to do with health and medicine ever since she’d been a child, and Brad’s death had reinforced that interest. After getting her bachelor’s degree in biology, she’d thought about becoming an oncologist, but Brad’s death had been too recent, and she didn’t think she could handle working with cancer patients. So, since she also loved animals—her family lived on a farm outside town and had all kinds of livestock and pets—she’d decided to become a vet.

While she wasn’t trained to doctor humans, she knew enough basics to know how rare it was for two apparently healthy men in their early thirties to keel over, especially within a few hours of each other. Sean’s death was disturbing enough, but after Jerry died, a couple of people on the alumni committee, herself included, had been worried that some kind of disease might be going around, like Legionnaire’s, only worse. They’d been in favor of canceling the rest of the reunion, if only as a precaution.